GRANT HUFFMAN
 GRANT HUFFMAN
Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
I live in Corpus Christi, TX with my wife and 2 youngest children. Your script stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your story and why did you write a script instead of a short story or a novel? Death in Poland was born from my determination to portray the Nazi death camps without the filters of sentiment, individual heroism, or narrative comfort. Too often, depictions of the Holocaust center on moments of hope or redemption. My aim was the opposite: to immerse the audience in the machinery of industrialized death, where the process itself— cold, detached, and efficient—becomes the protagonist. I approached this story as a historian and a witness to testimony, constructing a film where silence is as potent as screams, where the camera lingers without moral commentary, and where perpetrators are shown not as monsters of passion but as bureaucrats of annihilation. By draining away sentiment, I hoped to strip the viewer of safe distance and force them into the unblinking reality of systemic cruelty. This film is not meant to console. It is meant to haunt. My hope is that audiences will leave with an acute awareness of how easily humanity can be erased when empathy is removed from the equation—and how important it is that such erasure is never allowed to happen again. How long did it take you to write your script...and what is your writing process? Do you outline...use index cards...white board...or just start with FADE IN? The idea for the film has been in my mind for many years. I recently retired to spend more time as a family and began to write during the day. It took about 6 months to ensure historical accuracy. My mind thinks more like a collage. I would think through the whole film and begin writing scenes. Once I had the scenes I started to piece them together to create the best story possible. Once I had the main foundation and had about 68 pages I started to dig deeper and frame those scenes to stand out more. What is your ultimate ambition as a writer? This script being made into a mainstream film is really my ambition. Not to bring attention to myself but to draw attention to the importance of understanding the gravity of the Holocaust. I want the audience to understand more than being told people were forced inside death camps and never came out. I want them to know what happened when they were inside. This is controversial to some but extremely important to understand history in full. Was your entry at The Wiki Screenplay Contest a full script or “the first ten pages”? Why did you make that choice? I entered the full script. This story could not be understood in 10 pages. It’s kind of like most people's understanding of history. They know events in part but very rarely in full. What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show...and why? My all time favorite movie is the Godfather. It is the greatest example of character development. Taking the youngest son who wants nothing to do with the family business to him fully embracing his role as the successor to the family business. What advice do you have for writers hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have? Writers need to have a deep connection to their story. They need to write what they believe is the best story and have passion. The story being told should always rise above ambition for fame and fortune. What else are you working on that the world needs to know about? I’ve been searching for historical stories that have not been made into mainstream films. I have a couple ideas but don’t want to give them away. 😁 |
